[teal]

Geo: Sorry about perhaps sounding a little harsh. I'm sure that if I had thought a little more I could have found a nicer way to point out your typo.

But I think my charicature of the forum topic stands as valid (as a charicature). You say that Rex's statement meant that *only* the top 1% of wage earner's benefited from the tax cut. By no stretch of the imagination could Rex have meant that literaly. Thus you are picking on him for saying something which is technically not true, but fail to really address the gist of his meaning (that the top 1% benefit *disproportianetly* (sp?) more than other tax payers). I gave into my penchant for sarcastic arguing by using this same tactic against you. As it always does, it backfired and made me look like a jerk and I should know better.

To my mind, the ideal form of a debate is to always grant your oppenent their best possible argument (even if what they say is not quite that best possible argument). So when Rex spouts some tired argument about the top 1% of the tax payers being the one to benefit (implying *only* them in your mind), this should be read in its most powerful light (that the top 1% benefit more than everyone else does). Then one should try and argue with this new and improved best possible argument of ones debating oppenent. Admittedly, I have a lot of trouble doing this myself, but it is a good standard to try and live up to I think. If one is interested in actually feretting out some insight into questions and not merely scoring debating points.

Teal